Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 272

272 Or Else What?

James’ POVO

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Marcel stood there in my office looking angry, offended, insulted, and I realised something then. It hit me so sharply that I almost laughed before I even said it. He really thought he still had the upper hand. Even after everything. Even after I had thrown the truth in his face. Even after I had told him exactly what his help had done to my life. He still thought he could stand there and shift, lie, threaten, and somehow drag me back into the same corner he pushed me into before. He still thought I was that same man. The one who would panic. The one who would think he had no choice. The one who would keep swallowing dirt because he was too scared of what would happen if he spat it out. But something had changed in me. Maybe too late. Maybe after the worst had already happened. Maybe after Arya had paid the price for all my stupidity and fear. But it had changed all the same. I was still angry. I was still guilty. I was still full of regret. Moon, I was drowning in regret. But I was no longer blind. I could finally see him clearly, and once a man sees rot for what it is, it becomes hard to go back to calling it bread.

I looked at him and thought about that day. Those men. The men who came to my pack and sat in my hall and ate my food and spoke like Union officers. I remembered how official they sounded then. How serious. How much weight I gave it because I needed to. Because I wanted it to be true. Because I

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wanted to believe there was a path in front of me that did not end in blood and chaos and loss. I

remembered the food on the table. The false dignity of it all. The way I stood there trying to secure my future while Arya sat alone` and I was already, even then, too willing to choose fear over trust. I thought about all of that, and the more I thought about it, the uglier it looked.

“If you want me to believe you,” I said, “take me to those Union officers.”

Marcel frowned. “What?”

“The ones who came to my pack that day,” I said. “The ones who sat in my hall and ate my food. Take me to them. I want to see them. I want you to prove to me that they are actual Union members.”

For the first time since he entered, Marcel looked wrong-footed. Only for a second. But I saw it. Saw the flicker in his eyes. Saw the little pause. Saw the calculation. Good. Because that meant something. That meant the question hit where it should. I kept staring at him. Did he think I had not gone back over that day a thousand times in my mind? Did he think I had not replayed every second of how I got here? Every voice. Every warning. Every lie. Every little thing I ignored because I was too desperate to secure my pack and too proud to take the cleaner path with Maxwell first? I had thought about all of it. Too much. More than was good for any man. So yes, now I wanted to see those officers. I wanted to know whether they were real. I wanted to know whether I had been fooled that badly. I wanted to see it with my own eyes if I had really let actors sit in my house and sell me my own

ruin while I called it progress.

< 272 Or Else What?

Marcel chuckled then. Not because he found anything funny. It was that ugly sort of chuckle men like him used when they wanted to sound amused while buying time. He looked at me like I was being foolish, like I was a child asking for too much after being caught in disobedience.

“You are in no position to demand anything from me,” Marcel said. “Not after teaming up with Maxwell

behind my back.”

That was it.

That was the thing that made it settle properly in my mind.

I laughed.

Not a small laugh. Not fake politeness. I laughed right there in his face because suddenly it all looked too clear. Too dirty. Too stupid. And the biggest fool in it had been me. Moon, the shame of it nearly

made me choke, but still I laughed.

Of course. Of course those men might have been fakes. Of course Marcel would do something like

that.

Of course he would stage an entire day, bring in polished mouths and serious faces and false pressure and make me believe the Union was closer than it really was so he could drag me deeper into obligation and fear and his daughter and his demands.

Of course. I stopped laughing, but the bitterness of it stayed.

“They weren’t real, were they?” I asked him.

Marcel’s face hardened.

I took a step toward him.

“They might not even have been real Union officers,” I said. “Is that it? Actors? Men you hired to fool

me?”

He didn’t answer. He did not have to. I saw enough in his face. And just like that, another piece of my

life collapsed inside my chest.

Not because I had any innocence left. That was gone long ago. Not because I still believed Marcel was above that. I clearly did not. But because hearing it in my own head, seeing the possibility of it standing right there between us, made me realise again just how completely I had been played. How willing I had been to accept whatever version of urgency he handed me because it suited my fear. It was humiliating. No, humiliating was too light a word. It made me feel sick. Sick because while I was busy thinking I was navigating hard politics and trying to protect Nightwind, I might have been sitting in my own hall entertaining paid liars while Arya stood beside me and probably saw more than I did.

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< 272 Or Else What?

I stared at Marcel and felt the truth rise in me like bile.

“You were never planning to help me,” I said.

He said nothing.

Set 15

“How could you?” I asked him. “How could you plan to help me? How could a man like you ever truly mean well by someone like me when you had your precious daughter in the middle of it?”

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